I have to admit, I was quite upset when Apple bought Lala.com, bringing an abrupt end to what was an awesome music streaming service. But the prospect of Apple introducing their own streaming service using Lala’s technology quickly put my pain at ease.

At least that’s been the ongoing rumor since the Lala deal went down back in December of 2009. Ever since, the rumors have swirled regarding Apple’s next move, climaxing with the purchase of a gargantuan 500,000 square foot server farm capable of handling all of that extra bandwidth.

Will Apple finally introduce a streaming service similar to Lala, or are they headed in a different direction?

A recent article featured in the Financial Times sheds some much-needed light on the situation.

In an effort not to undermine the record-breaking sales of iTunes, Apple has declined to go forward with a music streaming service in the traditional sense.

Instead, the company behind the wildly successful iTunes plans to make it possible for iTunes users to backup their music collection to the cloud and access their own collections from any Apple device using a revamped MobileMe.

That’s a pretty disappointing revelation if you ask me. Sure, accessing the music you own is a decent consolation prize, but it would have been nice to have an Apple backed full-fledged music streaming service.

It’ll be interesting to see how Apple goes about its plans. Just how will they implement the ability to stream one’s own collection?

Surely they won’t require users to upload every single song they own. Perhaps there’s some sort of music identification service, or even worse; maybe Apple will only let you stream music you purchased from iTunes. Yikes.